FACT NUMBER THREE. 61 



for a part of the year at least, more than one thousand hands, 

 and that more than one hundred thousand of these wild 

 and diseased roots, come to-the New- York market annually, 

 and are re-planted in the neighboring- nurseries ! From these 

 places, they are subsequently sold out, and sent to every part 

 of the continent ! If it be asked how this traffic is conducted, 

 the question, as to the general operation, is easily answered. 

 The nurseryman employs laborers who go out into the fields, 

 among hedges, and over waste grounds, and redeem this 

 kind of stock from pasture lands and waste places, and, having 

 cast the poor, unsightly upper portion away, make prize of 

 the root as so much gain. This root is adopted into the 

 warm and kindling soil of the nursery ground, where the 

 stump, thus reclaimed from the fens and bogs of waste lands, 

 receives a graft from some well conditioned fruit tree, and 

 then, to an unschooled eye, all looks fair and of a fair promise. 

 But what is the true state of the case ? Just below the " beau- 

 tiful cion," there remains, covered up with earth, the sickly 

 seedling root, — worm-eaten, canker-smitten, and heart- wasted, 

 beyond the reach of art, — the healing touch of nature,— and 

 the world of hope. To say that each and every root thus re- 

 claimed, is necessarily sick and worthless, is saying too 

 much ; it is possible and even probable that among so many 

 thousand, a few may be found sound and healthy ; and it is 

 possible also that a selection is made, and the actually decayed 

 roots are thrown away. Yet many of our nurserymen know, 

 we presume, and if they do not, we can tell them, that, if all 

 this care in the selection be made, their grounds are charged 

 yearly, with perfectly dead seedling stumps, grafts and all, 

 which, when first planted, were too far gone either to sprout of 

 themselves, or give nourishment to the adopted cion. 



To an individual familiar with the nature and due health 

 of seedling plants, this base botch- work is, in fact, no cheat 

 whatever ; for with him, the very gloss of the bark, the tinge 

 of the leaf, or the leaf-bud, the simple blush of the plant, 



